"We've gone from "negro" to "black" to "Afro-American" to "African-American" to "Nubians" etc, etc. The only consistent throught all of these aliases??? "Nigger"."

Thats just not true- what about Black, or Brother. Just because the word nigger may be more controversial doesnt mean its more prevalent. In fact I think Black has it beat in terms of colloquial use- maybe not in Hip Hop music but there's more to us than Hip Hop.

We banded around this word because our people have never been afraid to consider themselves as human beings- be they ignorant or silly or materialistic or anything. The only way it was considered negatively was because it was cast down by a people who thought themselves further evolved than anyone else on the planet- since we no longer hold that ideology to be true then there's not much ferocity left in the word- especially since our people hae embraced it for so long and turned the tides on it so effectively.

K